February 2012

Above you’ll find the trailer for WWE Studios’ upcoming action/comedy Bending The Rules starring 2012 WWE Hall of Fame Inductee Edge and Jamie Kennedy. To go along with the trailer, here is the official synopsis of the film: Detective Nick Blades (WWE Superstar Edge) is a New Orleans cop on trial for corruption. Assistant District Attorney Theo Gold (Jamie Kennedy, Ghost Whisperer) is the man in charge of putting him behind bars. When these two unlikely partners from opposite sides of the law stumble onto a criminal plot, they’ll need to rely on luck – and patience – to take [...]

Sony’s Sr. Director of Corporate Communications and Social Media, Patrick Seybold today announced on the Official Playstation Blog that the Playstation Network will be going offline this Thursday for regular scheduled maintenance. For some reason, this isn’t like the normal PSN downtime’s where you could stay signed in and play online; this Thursday if you’re signed into the service you will be signed out and unable to access anything using PSN, and that includes playing games online. It’s expected that the service will be down all day. Here’s Sony’s [...]

EA Sports today announced 2011 Heisman Trophy winner and former quarterback for Baylor, Robert Griffin III as the cover athlete for the upcoming NCAA Football ’13 game. Well, he is one half of the cover anyway. Beginning March 12th, fans will be able to log on to the NCAA Football Facebook Page and vote for one of eight former Heisman winners to appear alongside RG3 on the cover. Those eight Heisman winners are: Marcus Allen (USC), Doug Flutie (Boston College), Eddie George (Ohio State), Desmond Howard (Michigan), Barry Sanders (Oklahoma State), Herschel Walker (UGA), Charlie Ward [...]

Remember the classic early 90’s arcade game “WWF WrestleFest?” It was much beloved by wrestling fans and gamers, and people have long called for a WrestleFest remake/port to today’s systems like other classic arcade games have gotten. Well, THQ is finally making that happen. Unfortunately, it’s only for iOS platforms (iPod, iPhone, iPad). Yeah, bummer. There’s a gallery of screenshots below, but first here’s some details about the game courtesy of the March 2012 edition of WWE Magazine (note, the below is not word for word from the magazine): Mixes [...]

Square Enix has dropped 10 new screenshots of its upcoming open-world action game, Sleeping Dogs. Check them out in the gallery below. Sleeping Dogs is the renamed True Crime: Hong Kong that was acquired by Square Enix last year (they did not acquire the IP though). The game is currently scheduled to be released in the second half of this year for PC, PS3, and Xbox [...]

Above is the second official trailer for Rockstar’s upcoming Max Payne 3, this one revealing more about the game’s story. Max was protecting Fabiana, wife of Rodrigo Branco, when she was kidnapped. Max has to try and uncover the truth about what happened and rescue the young lady, all while “amidst a treacherous web of lawless street gangs, ruthless paramilitary units – and his own personal demons.” (Quote from official Rockstar Newswire post.) Max Payne 3 will hit store shelves in North America on May 15, 2012 for Playstation 3, and Xbox 360, and on PC on May [...]

The demo for Mass Effect 3 hit PSN and XBLA yesterday, and after playing through the PS3 version a few times, here are my brief impressions. This covers the single player only, as I won’t get to experience the multiplayer until Friday (there will be a Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer Demo Impressions posted sometime after playing around that). I say this is a brief impression post, because quite frankly it is a lot like the PS3 version of Mass Effect 2, and you can read my review of that here. There are two parts to this demo. The first part is at the beginning of the game and there’s a [...]

Ubisoft officially announced Assassin’s Creed III today, and also gave a release date: October 30th. This should be the one that concludes the Desmond story, and according to Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot, this title has already been in development for three years. “We will push the title a lot because it’s a fantastic product that the team has been working for three years,” said Guillemot. “What we have seen is just fabulous.” Day one purchase? Absolutely! Love this franchise. No other details were released, but obviously this will be for PC, PS3, and Xbox [...]

The demo for Capcom’s upcoming action game Asura’s Wrath hit XBLA and PSN on January 10, but I’m just now getting around to it. Thus, here’s my delayed Demo Impressions. There are two parts to this demo, both parts of boss battles. You can play a portion of Episode 5 and a portion of Episode 11. These are titled episodes because, well, the game plays out like a television series where there’s a cliffhanger leading into the next episode. I’d imagine once you beat the game, you’ll be able to play any episode whenever you want, so this is a pretty cool [...]

Tonight’s RAW emanates from the Valley View Casino Center in San Diego, California. The only thing announced for tonight’s show is the appearance by the Heartbreak Kid, Shawn Michaels. They’re playing it us as HBK having a message for his long time friend Triple H. Obviously, this will have to do with Undertaker and WrestleMania. It’s either going to be Michaels trying to talk Hunter into accepting the match, or advising him not to do it. Either way, we all know the match will happen at WrestleMania; it’s the getting there that is the fun part. There is talk that [...]

Donkey Kong Jr. (NES, Wii VC [Reviewed] Others) Developer: Nintendo Publisher: Nintendo Genre(s): Arcade, Platforming Released: Wii VC – December 4, 2006 ESRB Rating: E – Everyone Quick retro mini review. This is the NES version of Donkey Kong Jr. played on the Wii Virtual Console, it has a few differences between the arcade version. Donkey Kong Jr. is of course the sequel to the hugely popular (in the 80s) Donkey Kong arcade game. The roles are reversed this time though. You don’t play as Mario trying to rescue the Princess from Donkey Kong. Instead, you play as Donkey Kong [...]

On February 9th, Adam Adamowicz lost his battle with cancer. While the name probably isn’t know to many gamers, sadly, his work certainly is. Adam was a concept artist on such highly rated time sucking games as Fallout 3 and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, in addition to other Bethesda games. On behalf of everyone here at The Vortex Effect, our condolences, thoughts and prayers are with Adam’s family and friends. If you want to learn some more about Adam, who helped shape worlds that many gamers have spent hundreds of hours in, as well as see pictures of some of the art he is [...]